The girl in the picture: An enduring and heartbreaking image of the Vietnam War

A little bit of background📃

I picked up The girl in the picture at the annual Lifeline second hand book fair in Brisbane in 2025. I was born as the Vietnam War entered its final stage and I have always been interested in the effects of war on the people who lived through it. The image of Kim Phuc is synonymous with all the tragedy of an unnecessary war and I was keen to read Kim's story.

The girl in the picture | Published 1999 | Read September 2025

The author✏️

Denise Chong is an economist and writer. She is a third generation Chinese-Canadian, born in Vancouver in 1953. Chong became a senior economic adviser in the Canadian government, working closely with the late Pierre Trudeau until the end of his term as Prime Minister in 1984. Chong left economics behind after that to pursue a career as a professional writer. She has published four books - one on her family's history - and one compilation of short stories.

The subject matterℹ️

The famous picture of 9-year-old Kim Phuc severely burned by napalm and running from her blazing village in South Vietnam on June 8, 1972 is one of the most haunting and unforgettable images of the Vietnam War. The girl in the picture is the story behind the photograph, life in Vietnam in the wake of the war, and Kim's journey of survival and hope.

My thoughts on the book💭

Chong has provided a detailed account of the famous photograph and its representation of the horrors of war and of Kim Phuc's life before and after she suffered horrific injuries from the napalm attack. The most interesting and heartbreaking part of the book is actually Kim's experiences after the bombing, showing how the Vietnamese government exploited her image, stifled her dreams of becoming a doctor, and forced her to become a symbol of the Communist regime.

I learnt a lot about Kim's journey from The girl in the picture and of post-war Vietnam, however the book is strangely bereft of emotion for such a powerful story. I haven't read any of Chong's other books, but I could make assumptions that her economics background may be ill-suited for writing social histories. Her writing style makes the book easy to read and it kept me interested all the way through, but it never really takes the story beyond the functional. It feels like the author can't decide whether the book is an autobiography or a history of Vietnam. I did find the book a compelling portrait of the Vietnam War, its social and political context, and the impact of the war on its people. There's a lot of detail in it, so I recommend giving the book a go if you want to better understand Vietnam's recent history. I just would have preferred Kim to feel more "present" in the book and to have her story told with more heart and humanity.

In sum📝

It feels important that Kim Phuc's story has been put to paper, to bring the famous picture to life and remind the world that there is a woman behind the image who suffered terribly. The lack of sentiment to Chong's writing however, means the book lacks soul, not because of its subject matter, but because of Chong's somewhat inelegant and textbook-style approach to presenting the life of an extraordinary woman.

Rating: ⭐⭐⭐